Inventing the Industrial Revolution
Inventing the Industrial Revolution

Author: Christine MacLeod

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2002-05-09

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780521893992

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book examines the development of the English patent system and its relationship with technical change during the period between 1660 and 1800, when the patent system evolved from an instrument of royal patronage into one of commercial competition among the inventors and manufacturers of the Industrial Revolution. It analyses the legal and political framework within which patenting took place and gives an account of the motivations and fortunes of patentees, who obtained patents for a variety of purposes beyond the simple protection of an invention. It includes the first in-depth attempt to gauge the reliability of the patent statistics as a measure of inventive activity and technical change in the early part of the Industrial Revolution, and suggests that the distribution of patents is a better guide to the advance of capitalism than to the centres of inventive activity. It also queries the common assumption that the chief goal of inventors was to save labour, and examines contemporary criticism of the patent system in the light of the changing conceptualisation of invention among natural scientists and political economists.

The Battle Over Patents
The Battle Over Patents

Author: Stephen H. Haber

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 019757615X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This essay is the introduction to a book of the same title, forthcoming in summer of 2021 from Oxford University Press. The purpose is to document the ways in which patent systems are products of battles over the economic surplus from innovation. The features of these systems take shape as interests at different points in the production chain seek advantage in any way they can, and consequently, they are riven with imperfections. The interesting historical question is why US-style patent systems with all their imperfections have come to dominate other methods of encouraging inventive activity. The essays in the book suggest that the creation of a tradable but temporary property right facilitates the transfer of technological knowledge and thus fosters a highly productive decentralized ecology of inventors and firms.

Patent Cultures
Patent Cultures

Author: Graeme Gooday

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-07-07

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 9781108468886

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book explores how dissimilar patent systems remain distinctive despite international efforts towards harmonization. The dominant historical account describes harmonization as ever-growing, with familiar milestones such as the Paris Convention (1883), the World Intellectual Property Organization's founding (1967), and the formation of current global institutions of patent governance. Yet throughout the modern period, countries fashioned their own mechanisms for fostering technological invention. Notwithstanding the harmonization project, diversity in patent cultures remains stubbornly persistent. No single comprehensive volume describes the comparative historical development of patent practices. Patent Cultures: Diversity and Harmonization in Historical Perspective seeks to fill this gap. Tracing national patenting from imperial expansion in the early nineteenth century to our time, this work asks fundamental questions about the limits of globalization, innovation's cultural dimension, and how historical context shapes patent policy. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the contested role of patents in the modern world.

The Most Powerful Idea in the World
The Most Powerful Idea in the World

Author: William Rosen

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-03-15

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0226726347

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"The Most Powerful Idea in the World argues that the very notion of intellectual property drove not only the invention of the steam engine but also the entire Industrial Revolution." -- Back cover.